Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani on Tuesday said his conglomerate will invest USD 20 billion (Rs. 1.50 lakh crore) over the next decade in renewable energy generation, component manufacturing, and distribution, and produce the world’s cheapest green election.
Speaking at the JP Morgan India Investor Summit, he unveiled his infrastructure conglomerate’s green vision, saying his group plans to triple its renewable power generation capacity over the next four years, foray into green hydrogen production, power all data centers with renewable energy, turn its ports into net carbon zero by 2025, and plans to spend over 75 percent of capital expenditure until 2025 in green technologies.
Adani Group’s “integrated value chain, our scale, and experience put us on the path to be the producer of the least expensive green electron anywhere in the world,” he said.
His announcement came after Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani announced on June 24 an investment of Rs 75,000 crore (USD 10 billion) in clean power and hydrogen fuel over the next three years.
Adani said no company in the world is building a renewable power portfolio on the scale his group is doing. The group currently has 4,920 MW of operational renewable energy generation capacity and another 5,124 MW under execution. It has a confirmed pipeline of 9,750 MW and another 4,500 MW where it is likely to win contracts.
“Today, we are already the world’s largest solar power player when we account for our generating, under construction, and contracted projects. We have done this in just two years and our renewables portfolio has reached our initial target of 25 Gigawatts a full four years ahead of schedule. This puts us well on track to be the world’s largest renewable power generating company by 2030,” he said.
This, he said, opens up several new pathways including “setting us up to be one of the largest green hydrogen producers in the world.”
“Our actions clearly indicate that we are putting our money where our mouth is: Over 75 percent of our planned Capex until 2025 will be in green technologies. Today, of our EBITDA from utilities, 43 percent is already from the green business.”
The Adani Group will triple renewable power generation capacity over the next four years from 21 percent now to a high of 63 percent. “Over the next 10 years, we will invest over USD 20 billion across renewable energy generation, component manufacturing, transmission, and distribution,” he said.
The Adanis’ will also be the first Indian data center company that will power all its data centers with renewable energy by 2030.
“We are now India’s largest private sector power producer, the largest private port operator, the largest private airport operator, largest private consumer gas and electric utility business, largest private electric transmission company, and largest infrastructure developer in renewables.”
The group would also grow by expanding into related sectors and incubate new businesses. It will in each of its businesses, develop deep operational expertise and then grow aggressively, both organically and through acquisitions.
“In just the last eight years, we have acquired over 50 assets amounting to about USD 12 billion,” he said.
On digital business, he said the Adani Group’s plans for airport-centered growth include metropolitan developments that span entertainment facilities, e-commerce and logistics capabilities, aviation-dependent industries, and smart city developments.
Over the next two decades, he said, India will have the biggest and youngest middle class that has ever existed. Over the next decade, it will be among the world’s top four countries in terms of market capitalization. “This is leverage from which we must benefit.”
India, he said, will be driven by homegrown companies and those international businesses that are truly committed to being and acting locally.
“But, as if the pandemic were not enough, yet another challenge looms ahead of us and India will have to play a major balancing role. If the crisis in 2001 was the bursting of the dot-com bubble, and in 2007 the bursting of the housing bubble, and if in 2020 the crisis was the pandemic, we now have to collectively confront and manage the crisis of climate change,” he said.
Managing the climate crisis will require every country in the world to unite, perhaps like never before, and work together.
“Those criticizing the pace of climate reform in countries like India must remember that the economic and industrial might of the West sits on a carpet of carbon soot several centuries deep. A hundred years ago, today’s climate reformers were burning over 800 million metric tonnes of coal – that is more coal than what India produces today,” he said.
From pre-industrial times until now, India accounts for only 3 percent of the extra carbon in the atmosphere and will eventually end up consuming less than 8 percent.